I could be wrong about this but I don't think the goal is to pay in Ethers. That's why it doesn't really compete with Bitcoin in the sense you may think. While I understand that their verbiage had to change due to legal reasons, the verbiage right now states that Ether is the "gas" that powers the functions that Ethereum provides. I guess in a sense that would make it similar to Ripple. Neither expects to be the next "Apple Pay" but both use their unit of account for executing functions and features tied to their blockchain. The value of ether will go up provided the demand to develop on that platform goes up faster than the supply being generated in intervals they have planned.
Anyone correct me where I'm wrong.
-B-
This was also what I gathered from reading about Ethereum a while back. The first thought that struck me was that "Ether" was being described as the "fuel" to run scripts on the Ether network, and that currencies and applications could be built
on top of it. But why? To me it just seems like people would use ETH itself as the currency and that ETH would always be more valuable than any currency created on top of it.
As a comparison: BTC is basically the fuel for the Bitcoin blockchain too. Colored coins can be created on top of the bitcoin network for specialized uses, but still the most valuable and underlying coin is the bitcoin. I feel Ether will be the same as BTC, and BTC is definitely a currency, so why wouldn't ETH also be a currency? I'm sure it will be valuable when trying to buy it.
Is there a possibility that more Ether will be introduced into their system at a future time or is the supply forever fixed now that the sale is over?
If I have the wrong concept of Ether please feel free to correct me. I'd like to understand it.